The girl, Althora, leaned forward now. "It will please my brother," she said in a soft voice, "that you thought it real. He has had pleasure in creating that--a replica of the skies we used to know before the coming of the clouds." * * * * * Professor Sykes was bewildered. "That sky--the stars--they are not real?" he asked incredulously. "But the grass--the flowers--" Her laugh rippled like music. "Oh, they are real," she told him, and her brother gave added explanation. "The lights," he said: "we supply the actinic rays that the clouds cut off above. We have sunlight here, made by our own hands; that is why we are as we are and not like the red ones with their bleached skins. We had our lights everywhere through the world when we lived above, but those red beasts are ignorant; they do not know how to operate them; they do not know that they live in darkness even in the light." "Then we are below ground?" asked the flyer. "You live here?" "It is all we have now. At that time of which I tell, it was the red ones who lived out of sight; they were a race of rodents in human form. They lived in the subterranean caves with which this planet is pierced. We could have exterminated them at any time, but, in our ignorance, we permitted them to live, for we, of Venus--I use your name for the planet--do not willingly take life." "They have no such compunctions!" Professor Sykes' voice was harsh; he was remembering the sacrifice to the hungry plants. A flash as of pain crossed the sensitive features of the girl, and the man beside her seemed speaking to her in soundless words. "Your mind-picture was not pleasant," he told the scientist; then continued: "Remember, we were upon the world, and these others were within it. There came a comet. Oh, our astronomers plotted its course; they told us we were safe. But at the last some unknown influence diverted it; its gaseous projection swept our world with flame. Only an instant; but when it had passed there was left only death...." * * * * * He was lost in recollection for a time; the girl beside him reached over to touch his hand. "Those within--the red ones--escaped," he went on. "They poured forth when they found that catastrophe had overwhelmed us. And we, the handful that were left, were forced to take shelter here. We have lived here since, waiting for the day when the Master of Destinies shall give us freedom and a world in which to live." "You speak," suggested the scientist, "as if this had happened to you. Surely you refer to your ancestors; you are the descendants of those who were saved." "We are the people," said the other. "We lived then; we live now; we shall live for a future of endless years.